implementing public wi-fi services for local government

A collection of research and case

studies relevant for LGAs looking to

implement or grow an existing Public

Wi-Fi service.

Report

Implementing Public Wi-Fi

Services for Local

Government

MAV Technology

Level 12, 60 Collins St, Melbourne 3000

© Can Stock Photo Inc. / dolgachov

© MAV Technology 2014. All rights reserved. Page 1 4 Mar 14

Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government

Table of Contents

Change log ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 4

Introduction .................................................................................................................................................................................... 5

About this report ..................................................................................................................................................................... 5

Audience .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 7

Licensing .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 7

Disclaimer ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 7

Objectives ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 8

Current State .................................................................................................................................................................................. 9

Drivers for municipal authorities ..................................................................................................................................... 10

The rise of mesh networks ................................................................................................................................................. 10

Resources ................................................................................................................................................................................. 11

Survey Results .............................................................................................................................................................................. 12

Implementation approach ...................................................................................................................................................... 15

Step 1 - Why? ......................................................................................................................................................................... 16

Benefits for councils ........................................................................................................................................................ 16

Step 2 – Where? ..................................................................................................................................................................... 17

Step 3 – What? ....................................................................................................................................................................... 17

Step 4 – How and who? ...................................................................................................................................................... 18

Business model variations .................................................................................................................................................. 19

Business model details ............................................................................................................................................................. 21

Case studies .................................................................................................................................................................................. 26

South Gippsland Shire Council ........................................................................................................................................ 26

Implementation phases ................................................................................................................................................. 26

The future ............................................................................................................................................................................ 27

Take-aways ......................................................................................................................................................................... 28

East Gippsland Shire Council ............................................................................................................................................ 29

Current Situation .............................................................................................................................................................. 29

The Future ........................................................................................................................................................................... 30

Take-aways ......................................................................................................................................................................... 30

Goulburn Mulwaree Council ............................................................................................................................................. 30

History................................................................................................................................................................................... 31

Current state ....................................................................................................................................................................... 31

Resources ............................................................................................................................................................................ 32



Take-aways ......................................................................................................................................................................... 32

City of Melbourne ................................................................................................................................................................. 32

Background ......................................................................................................................................................................... 33

EOI details ........................................................................................................................................................................... 33

Service details .................................................................................................................................................................... 34

Resources ............................................................................................................................................................................ 34

Take-aways ......................................................................................................................................................................... 34

City of Port Phillip ................................................................................................................................................................. 34

Background ......................................................................................................................................................................... 34

Plans for the future .......................................................................................................................................................... 35

Take-aways ......................................................................................................................................................................... 36

Detroit ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 36

Cass Corridor ...................................................................................................................................................................... 36

North Corktown ................................................................................................................................................................ 36

48217 neighbourhood ................................................................................................................................................... 37

Take-aways ......................................................................................................................................................................... 37

General references ........................................................................................................................................................... 37

San Francisco Bay Area ....................................................................................................................................................... 38

Silicon Valley Unwired .................................................................................................................................................... 38

Google Wi-Fi ...................................................................................................................................................................... 38

Yarra Plenty Regional Library............................................................................................................................................ 39

Technical details................................................................................................................................................................ 39

The future ............................................................................................................................................................................ 40

Take-aways ......................................................................................................................................................................... 40

A carrier perspective ................................................................................................................................................................. 41

General references ........................................................................................................................................................... 41

Telstra ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 42

Other resources ................................................................................................................................................................. 42

Optus .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 43

Vodafone .................................................................................................................................................................................. 43

Implementation Guidelines .................................................................................................................................................... 44

Legislation and Regulation ................................................................................................................................................ 44

Privacy Act ........................................................................................................................................................................... 44

Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (TIA) .................................................................... 45



Telecommunications Act 1997 (Cth) ......................................................................................................................... 46

ACMA .................................................................................................................................................................................... 46

Other requirements .............................................................................................................................................................. 47

Proposed changes to the access of and retention of metadata ........................................................................ 47

Terms and Conditions............................................................................................................................................................... 48

Internode standard .......................................................................................................................................................... 48

Queensland Museum ...................................................................................................................................................... 48

Brisbane City Council (BCC) .......................................................................................................................................... 49

City of Sterling (WA)........................................................................................................................................................ 49

State Library of Victoria ................................................................................................................................................. 50

Sunshine Coast Regional Council .............................................................................................................................. 50

Recommendation .................................................................................................................................................................. 50

Public Wi-Fi Architecture ......................................................................................................................................................... 52

Mesh vs Traditional WDS ................................................................................................................................................... 52

Overall systems architecture ............................................................................................................................................. 53

Municipal network architecture example .................................................................................................................... 54

Technology .............................................................................................................................................................................. 54

Design and troubleshooting ............................................................................................................................................. 58

Other considerations ........................................................................................................................................................... 58

Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 60

Attachments ................................................................................................................................................................................. 60

Attachment A : Business Model variations ....................................................................................................................... 61

Attachment B : Glossary ........................................................................................................................................................... 65



Change log

Version Date Author Summary of changes

3.0 23 Dec 14 Luke Potter – Charlie

Mac and Associates Initial draft

4.0 8 Jan 15 Luke Potter – Charlie

Mac and Associates

Included sections:

• Implementation approach

• CoPP, YPRL, Detroit and San Francisco case

studies.

• Recommendation in Terms and Conditions

section.

• Glossary

• More info on community wireless.


Mac and Associates

Included updates to sections:

• Architecture

• Glossary

• Benefits to Council

• Carrier Perspective


Mac and Associates

Complete review of document

7.0 9 Feb 15 Luke Potter – Charlie

Mac and Associates

Includes the flowing updates:

• Added diagrams

• Added high level work-plan for Implementation

Approach section.

• Added Altai to Public Wi-Fi Architecture –

Technology section.

• Made all footer references hyperlinks.

• Reference to Creative Commons licensing on

every page.

• Disclaimer at start of document.

• Overview of mesh and hub-and-spoke network

architectures in Public Wi-Fi Architecture section.

• Remove Things to Look into sections and add

content that these points refer to.

• Update Audience section.

• Other minor updates.


Mac and Associates

Updates from Denis Wilson.


Mac and Associates

Updates from Dr Ian McShane, Les Firth (Yarra Plenty

Regional Library case study) and from Mike Pearson (CoPP

case study) and other minor changes.

10.0 4 Mar 15 Luke Potter – Charlie

Mac and Associates

Minor typographical updates.



Introduction

As Deloitte mentioned in their Value of Connectivity report of Feb 20141, ready access to the

Internet is an important ingredient in helping communities grow. Public Wi-Fi can help

create new opportunities for community engagement and collaboration, provide new

services, and as a means of encouraging people to spend more time in retail precincts. Public

Wi-Fi, if done well, can help spur on economic activity.

Successful Public Wi-Fi offerings are often based around:

• Sustainable business models. Public Wi-Fi can be sustainable if it achieves its

intended objectives. LGAs must decide specifically what they want to achieve from

implementing a Public Wi-Fi offering. Once objectives are clear, then more details of

a model Wi-Fi architecture can be explored, including coverage footprint, security

controls and technologies used. Ongoing funding is particularly important.

• Legal obligations. When Council offers any service to the community, there comes a

range of legal and regulatory obligations that need to be fulfilled. For Wi-Fi these

may include record / metadata retention, and other management controls. In

addition, public expectations about what is appropriate should be taken into account

(including censorship).

• Service level obligations. Performance of any form of access to the Internet must

support user experience. People expect content to render within a couple of seconds

or the activity they are performing may suffer. LGAs must explore factors that ensure

the performance and availability of connections to Public Wi-Fi that may include

blocking specific traffic, or bandwidth throttling or shaping. LGAs should also

consider capacity planning.

About this report

This report addresses what it takes for LGAs to successfully implement a Public Wi-Fi

offering. In doing so, this report includes details of:

• Research material related to the design, implementation, use and ongoing

management of Public Wi-Fi services;

• Case studies from across Victoria and the globe, focused on Victorian LGAs and

includes significant case studies from other sectors - both private and public;

• Details of technologies available that are relevant to local government;

• Business models that support the sustainable use of Public Wi-Fi; and

1 https://fbcdn-dragon-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/t39.2365/851546_1398036020459876_1878998841_n.pdf



• Policy and process for the effective management of Public Wi-Fi.

This report provides a reference for LGAs looking to understand more about how others

have implemented Public Wi-Fi solutions and seeking guidance on how they may implement

their own Public Wi-Fi offering.

Public Wi-Fi, for the purposes of this body of knowledge, is considered as Wi-Fi that is made

available to the general public. The service is usually provided free of charge (at least for a

specific time or download limit) and is not targeted to any specific group of people.

This Public Wi-Fi report was commissioned by MAV Technology2 and developed by Charlie

Mac and Associates3 over the period December 2014 through to January 2015, and being a

deliverable of the Public Wi-Fi Implementation Guidelines project.

2 http://www.lgict.net.au 3 http://www.charlie-mac.com/



Audience

This report is intended for use by members of MAV Technology participating councils to

help them understand, plan for and implement a sustainable Public Wi-Fi service offering for

their respective communities.

This document may be shared with other parties related to MAV Technology and

participating councils for the purposes of collaborating on broader Public Wi-Fi offerings.

Licensing

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/.

Disclaimer

Although the author of this report has made every effort to ensure that the information in

this report was correct at the time of publication, the author does not assume and hereby

disclaim any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or

omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any other

cause.



Objectives

The most important objectives of the Public Wi-Fi Implementation Guidelines project are to

define (listed in order of priority)4:

Objective of this report Refer to section

Community benefits including increasing foot traffic and flow on

economic benefits. In addition, why and when to implement Public

Wi-Fi is considered

Step 1 – Why? in Implementation

Approach section

Setting up a Public Wi-Fi solution, including regulatory and security

considerations

Public Wi-Fi Architecture and

Legislation and Regulation in

Implementation Guidelines section

Business models that can be employed to ensure an appropriate

exchange of value

Implementation Approach and

Business Model sections

Other objectives (in no particular order) include understanding:

• The differences between ADSL and Wi-Fi services,

• Whether LGAs can make money from Public Wi-Fi,

• Better practice management controls (including those around shaping, throttling and

security),

• Legal issues related to Public Wi-Fi,

• Mesh networks and common SSIDs used across municipalities, and

• Arguments against implementing a Public Wi-Fi service.

4 Derived during the Public Wi-Fi discussion of the LGICT meeting of 13 Nov 14



Current State

After uncertain beginnings, Public Wi-Fi in Australia is entering a network infrastructure

investment phase, where government and telecommunication carriers are building the

infrastructure required for more widespread adoption and use of Wi-Fi. Australia lags behind

the US and Europe in the widespread availability of Public Wi-Fi5. Even though early Public

Private Partnerships to rollout and support Public Wi-Fi in the US seem to have failed, the

investment in infrastructure has provided the backbone for new and innovative Public Wi-Fi

service offerings that promise to be sustainable.

Demand for Public Wi-Fi continues to grow across Australia. According to ACMA6, over the

12 months to June 14, there were 3 million Internet users across Australia that supplement

their Internet usage with Wi-Fi service offerings (or 21% of all Internet users). This compares

with 43% in the US and 11% in the UK. Over the 5 years to June 2014, use of Wi-Fi service

offerings has increased 6 times. ACMA notes that the most important reasons for this surge

in uptake are largely driven by users looking for alternatives to:

• lessen the pressure on their 3G or 4G capped mobile data service plans;

• avoid international data roaming charges (for travellers from other countries); and

• provide more opportunities to go online (with devices that are Wi-Fi capable but are

not mobile data capable).

Internationally, Public Wi-Fi service offerings continue to grow7 - driven primarily by the

dramatic increase in mobile data consumption and telecommunication carriers looking to

offload traffic to Wi-Fi alternatives, subsequently reducing the need for 4G mobile data

infrastructure investment. A telecommunications carrier offered a small borough in London

500,000 pounds to implement Public Wi-Fi for this very reason8. Closer to home, Telstra

have introduced their Wi-Fi Nation service and Optus are investigating opportunities to enter

the Public Wi-Fi space (see A Carrier’s Perspective section for more details).

In addition to offloading mobile data traffic, telecommunications carriers are also looking to

Public Wi-Fi for delivering location based services (for example, Telefonica9) and to augment

satellite TV offerings (for example, The Cloud10). One of the greatest challenges though for

5 https://publicwifiaustralia.wordpress.com/ 6 http://www.acma.gov.au/theACMA/engage-blogs/engage-blogs/Research-snapshots/Strong-signals-growing-use-of-public-

Wi-Fi-hotspots 7 http://www.pcworld.com/article/243464/number_of_wifi_hotspots_to_quadruple_by_2015_says_study.html 8 http://www.lbhf.gov.uk/Directory/News/Free_wifi_in_Hammersmith_and_Fulham.asp 9 http://www.wballiance.com/wba/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2012/07/16_WBA-Industry-Report-2011-_Global-

Developments-in-Public-Wi-Fi-1.00.pdf 10 http://www.muniwireless.com/2011/01/27/details-about-bskyb-acquisition-of-the-cloud/



telecommunications providers in delivering Public Wi-Fi is getting access to infrastructure in

the right locations for mounting Access Points. This provides an opportunity for LGAs that

own infrastructure in such locations to work together with telecommunications carriers to

provision Public Wi-Fi services for their communities at low or no cost. Sometimes there is

no clear owner of infrastructure - for example, five stakeholders needed to be consulted in

installing a Wi-Fi Access Point on a light pole in Bendigo. LGAs exploring partnerships with

telecommunication carriers are cautious though. They understand that introducing Public

Wi-Fi under such a partnership may become anti-competitive and provide a carrier with

a cornered market.

Many smaller towns have a fibre networks, although it is often difficult to locate and

subsequently utilise these networks. This asset is frequently overlooked in Public Wi-Fi

design across Australia.

Drivers for municipal authorities

Municipal authorities across the globe are investing in Public Wi-Fi services to help support

the communities they serve. Some of the objectives that they are looking to achieve include:

• Closing the digital divide - for example, many homeless have smartphones and free

public Wi-Fi provides them with access to resources and knowledge on the Internet

that they would not otherwise have access to.

• Political drivers - where it makes political sense to promote the development of

Public Wi-Fi for communities. Under this premise, there is usually no consideration of

market failure.

• Avoiding being left out - LGAs are deciding to implement Public Wi-Fi to avoid

travellers passing through their municipality to get access to Public Wi-Fi.

• Discovery and innovation - if the tools for collaborating and creating (ie in this case

being free access to the Internet via Wi-Fi) are provided to a community, then they

themselves will innovate and create new products and services. But this presents a

paradox. It is in many cases impossible to predict what new products and services

could be created by communities that receive more available access to the Internet,

and as such is difficult to justify the cost of enabling such access if benefits cannot be

fully understood.

The rise of mesh networks

Public Wi-Fi services are also being developed by community groups. Community mesh

networks are well established in the US, and are beginning to be introduced in

Australia. One local example of a sustainable community mesh network is that in the city of



Goulburn. Goulburn was one of the first towns in Australia to implement such a community

network model. Implemented and managed by The Goulburn Group11 (a local community

development and action group), their model for businesses to share spare bandwidth to

provide Public Wi-Fi is proving to be useful for consumers. These community mesh networks

seem to succeed when an investment is made in the people that share their Wi-Fi service

with the public and the people that manage the overall network. The Goulburn model

comes with its own challenges and has raised questions about who is responsible from

gateway to device (see Goulburn Mulwaree Council case study and Mesh vs Traditional WDS

in the Public Wi-Fi Architecture section of this document for more information).

One aspect frequently overlooked is Public Wi-Fi delivered through municipal

libraries. Libraries are the largest providers of Public Wi-Fi in Australia. The ALIA

Internet Access in Public Libraries Survey 201312 report notes that 70% of libraries across

Australia provide Wi-Fi for their patrons. This report also provides a good overview of some

of the controls imposed by libraries on these Wi-Fi services. Some municipal libraries are

struggling to provide this service, whilst others are pushing the footprint of the network out

into their surrounding open space. The learnings from libraries providing Public Wi-Fi can

provide useful insight for LGAs looking to provide similar services.

The first question that LGAs must answer in their journey in rolling out Public Wi-Fi is why -

why should Council invest in providing Public Wi-Fi?

Resources

• Discussion paper13 on the role of local government in provisioning Public Wi-Fi (US)

Acknowledgement: This section was derived from an interview with and material provided

by Dr Ian McShane14, Senior Research Fellow and Dr Chris K Wilson15, Research Associate,

Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University.

11 http://www.goulburngroup.com.au/ 12 http://mavtechnology.net/download/alia-internet-access-in-public-libraries-survey-2013 13 https://cei.org/pdf/4472.pdf 14 http://www.rmit.edu.au/staff/ianmcshane 15http://www1.rmit.edu.au/browse/About%20RMIT%2FContact%2F;ID=iqyfbl3ed3ls1;STATUS=A?QRY=christopher&STYPE=PEO

PLE



Survey Results

A survey on Public Wi-Fi was released by Charlie Mac and Associates16 to all MAV Technology

members across Victoria and was run from 18 November through to 5 December 2014. The

purpose of this survey was to obtain a Victorian state-wide view of Public Wi-Fi accessibility,

benefits, challenges, and plans for the future. Of the 79 LGAs across Victoria, 69 have

representation on the MAV Technology committee and 15 of these participated in the survey

(ie 22%).

Two thirds of the respondents indicated that

they already had at least one Public Wi-Fi

service in place. Of those that had not yet

implemented a Public Wi-Fi service, 40% have

plans in place to implement Public Wi-Fi within

the next 6 months. One respondent indicated

that their council had no plans currently for

implementing Public Wi-Fi.

Most LGAs indicated that one of their objectives for implementing Public Wi-Fi was

to provide a value adding service for council facilities, parks and events. This and other

Public Wi-Fi objectives were categorised into 9 objective themes that were derived from

Public Wi-Fi research and informed by the results received from LGAs. These 9 Public Wi-Fi

objective themes are (number of LGAs indicating objectives that aligned with a theme is

shown in brackets):

• Value add at council facilities, parks and events (9);

• Encouraging economic activity (including support for tourism) (6);

• Encouraging innovation (2);

• Bridging the digital divide (2);

• Support for local digital initiatives (1); and

• Ease pressure on mobile networks (1).

One respondent indicated that their objective was simply to implement Public Wi-Fi.

Other objectives that were obtained from research, but were not indicated by any LGA as an

objective include:

• Another means for generating revenue;

16 http://www.charlie-mac.com/

Some of the results obtained from the

Public Wi-Fi survey



• Learning more about the community and their behaviour; and

• Improving political standing.

Respondents indicated that Public Wi-Fi, in a municipal context, is available in a variety of

settings (number of LGAs indicating a particular setting is shown in brackets):

• Libraries (9);

• Council offices (7);

• Council managed open space (3);

• Retail precincts (2); and

• Other (4).

The survey concluded in asking respondents to describe what has worked along with the

challenges that they face (or had faced) in providing a Public Wi-Fi service. In summarising

what had worked, responses were grouped into 8 themes (number of councils that provided

a response that aligned with these themes is shown in brackets):

• Take-up of the service (5);

• Value add to council services and attracts people to those services (4);

• Leveraging council infrastructure (2);

• Ease of set-up (2);

• A blended service model (ie where Council and a service provider run specific parts of

the service) (1);

• Enhancing relationships with other community services (eg hospitals and

universities)(1);

• Bridging the digital divide (1); and

• Positive press (1).

Challenges were grouped into 10 themes:

• Available bandwidth (4);

• Meeting service expectations for users (4);

• Cost (3);

• Sustainable business model (2);

• Ongoing management (2);

• Older Wi-Fi technology in place (1);

• Meeting demand from other Council divisions (1);

• Information capture (ie what information to capture)(1);

• Uptake (ie getting sufficient people to use the service)(1);

• Deciding upon technical architecture (1).



Raw survey results, along with interpretive graphs, can be found on the MAV Technology

Portal17

17 http://www.mavtechnology.net/



Implementation approach

The implementation of Public Wi-Fi for many LGAs is more of a journey than a destination, in

that Public Wi-Fi services require ongoing resources, funding and commitment to maintain.

In addition, as the service matures, many LGAs find that they refine and improve their Public

Wi-Fi services to better meet their objectives and the demands of the communities they

serve.

This section discusses a broad implementation approach available for LGAs to undertake

their Public Wi-Fi journey and guidance on which path may be most beneficial based upon

the rationale made by others in undertaking the implementation path they chose.

An implementation approach is typically structured around the four steps:

• Step 1 - Why are you undertaking this journey and what are you looking to achieve?

• Step 2 - Where would this service be provided?

• Step 3 - What would the service look like to users? What leverage you may be able

to bring to bear in negotiating with third parties? What legislative and regulatory

requirements may you need to adhere to? What level of risk are you prepared to

take? What support do you have for implementing Public Wi-Fi across Council and

the community?

• Step 4 - How would you go about funding design, implementation and support for

such a service? Who do you need support from? Who will design, implement and

support?

Work on these steps may happen sequentially or in parallel to a degree. LGAs may find that

an iterative approach is required where an initial pass of steps 1 through 4 is undertaken,

and then all steps are revisited once further information comes to hand and the concept of

the service takes shape.



The first activity many LGAs undertake in this journey is to confirm why – why they should

provide a Public Wi-Fi service.

Step 1 - Why?

Understanding why is the question that many successful Public Wi-Fi implementations

commence with. The most prevalent reasons why many embark upon a Public Wi-Fi journey

include:

• Encouraging innovation – No-cost Wi-Fi access to the Internet can provide an

environment for innovation to take place.

• Encouraging greater use of indoor and outdoor space – Wireless access to the

Internet can help encourage the community to make better access of public spaces.

• Improving political standing – Public Wi-Fi is a relatively low cost initiative that

provides benefits for many. This is why many see Public Wi-Fi as a great initiative to

help promote Council and the work they do to serve their communities.

• Learning more about people and behaviour – If done in a way that protects personal

privacy, Public Wi-Fi can provide a unique opportunity to understand behaviours of

the community so that Council can provide services that better support them.

• Encouraging economic activity – Public Wi-Fi can encourage people to stay longer in

retail precincts and, as a result, spend more money in those precincts. The Economics

of Public Wi-Fi 18report provides more detail on potential economic benefits for LGAs.

In a survey done by iGR in the US of businesses providing free Wi-Fi, over half saw an

increase in the time spent by patrons on premises and an increase in spending19.

• Bridging the digital divide – social equity. Providing a means for all members of the

community to access the Internet is important for many LGAs. The Internet provides

access to knowledge, facilitates connections with others and creates opportunities to

grow.

• No idea why – There is simply a knowing that implementing a Public Wi-Fi service is

the right thing to do.

Benefits for councils

Public Wi-Fi also provides opportunities for LGAs to offload their own corporate traffic onto

the Wi-Fi network to reduce data costs. This includes:

• Field workers – staff in the field using a mobile device can use the Wi-Fi network to

pull down information or send information to Council.

18 http://telsoc.org/ajtde/2014-03-v2-n1/a20 (note - premium content requires payment of a fee to view) 19 http://www.telecompetitor.com/igr-increased-spending-by-customers-using-free-wi-fi-seen-by-50-of-retailers/



• GPS tracking – many GPS tracking solutions will apply least cost routing and switch to

a Wi-Fi network when available (rather than use 3G/4G or satellite) for data

communications between the tracking device and the fleet management system.

• Remote sensor monitoring – a more pervasive network, as potentially provided by

Wi-Fi, may provide opportunities to reduce remote sensor data costs (as being

considered by the City of Melbourne).

Step 2 – Where?

LGAs typically provide Public Wi-Fi in one or many of the following locations across their

municipality:

• Within Council buildings and libraries;

• Open space immediately surrounding Council buildings and libraries;

• Popular retail precincts; and/or

• Stand-alone outdoor public space.

Locations should be selected to help achieve the objectives for Public Wi-Fi (ie Step 1 –

Why). In addition, Wi-Fi site survey and planning tools can help identify optimum areas for

placing Access Points. See the section on Public Wi-Fi Architecture for more details.

Step 3 – What?

The success of a Public Wi-Fi service is how well it achieves its objectives, and this usually

means how users take-up the service. Take-up relies upon where the service is located and

also how seamlessly the service operates for the user. Less barriers and complications to

using the service usually mean greater degrees of take-up. Typically, LGAs consider the

following service characteristics to balance take-up with having adequate controls to

manage available bandwidth and operating risk:

• Terms and conditions on a splash page – displayed for new users to the service.

• Single SSID – making roaming between Access Points easier for users

• Enforcing daily download limits – where greater download amounts can be

purchased if required.

• Throttling based on traffic type (eg bit torrent).

• Limiting the use of advertising to provide an experience that is less intrusive for a

user.



Step 4 – How and who?

When seeking funding options for Public Wi-Fi, the first question to address is whether an

LGA can fully fund the implementation and support required to meet (and sustain)

objectives, or whether alternate business models should be investigated.

A fully funded, end-to-end ownership, model is usually made possible through a Public Wi-Fi

initiative included as a Council Plan action.

If an LGA is unlikely to be able to fully fund design, implementation and support, then

alternate funding models should be considered, including:

• Partnership – where Council forms an agreement with one or more third parties to

collectively provide Public Wi-Fi.

• Discrete ownership – where Council owns part of the solution, and a third party (or

parties) own other parts.

• Community network – where Council supports the community in developing their

own Public Wi-Fi services.

Some business models are more appropriate for achieving particular objectives, such as:

Objective Commonly used business models

Encouraging innovation Community network

Encouraging greater use of indoor and outdoor space Fully funded, end-to-end ownership, Partnership

Improving political standing Fully funded, end-to-end ownership, usually

supported by a Council Plan action

Learning more about people and behaviour Partnership

Encouraging economic activity Partnership

Bridging the digital divide Partnership, Community network

No idea why Partnership

In addition, LGAs should consider the business models that may be most appropriate given

the size of the community they serve and how geographically dispersed it is. As such,

council types serve to characterise the funding options available:

• Small Rural Council– Where Council is of small size (ie <250 employees) and the

community is clustered in small towns and along major roads.

• Regional Council– Where Council is of medium size (ie 250 < employees < 600) and

the community is clustered in major towns.



• Metro Council– Within the boundaries of the Melbourne metropolitan area and the

community is dispersed across the municipality.

The funding options typically explored for these council types (if a fully funded model is not

possible) include:

Implementation

track

Options that require

minimal funding

Rationale

Small rural Council

In towns Community network Council can support a sustainable Public Wi-Fi service at minimal

cost.

Other areas Nil Such municipalities are unlikely to have sufficient density of users

to justify a Public Wi-Fi offering.

Regional Council

In towns Partnership,

Community network

Some public spaces and retail precincts may provide the

opportunity to capture enough users to make Public Wi-Fi

economically sustainable. Community networks could increase

coverage.

Other areas Partnership Partnership may provide service in areas that in themselves are

unsustainable. Negotiate as part of agreement for service in

towns.

Metro Council Partnership,

Community network

Sufficient captive users across most areas to provide Public Wi-Fi

through partnership, and augmented by community networks.

Please note that this matrix is not definitive – it simply seeks to highlight business models that

are commonly considered and likely to be worthy for initial investigation. Other business

models, if not shown, may be worth considering also.

In addition, business models relating to specific LGA types are not mutually exclusive (ie an

LGA may find that a Public Wi-Fi presence across their municipality may be made up of a

combination of business models. For example, Public Wi-Fi in popular areas of open space

may be provided through a self-funded model, whilst retail precincts are serviced by a

community network (as in the case of Goulburn).

Business model variations

In exploring possible business model options, an LGA may wish to explore more details of

the variations available within these broad business models. Some of the business model



variations and pre-requisites, benefits, broad factors that influence cost and associated risks

related to these variations are described at Attachment A : Business Model Variations.



Business model details

This section provides more detail on the broad business models that are available to LGAs in

establishing or expanding their existing Public Wi-Fi service. Whilst these business models

are not specific for any particular council, they do serve as a guide for structuring an

approach to engaging third parties, for clarifying the relationship between those third parties

and Council, and for ensuring there is appropriate sharing of cost, risks and benefits.

When an LGA seeks to engage a third party, it is important to understand the leverage that

the LGA can use to negotiate a fair agreement. Typically, in Public Wi-Fi implementations,

four points of leverage are available to LGAs, being:

• Right of way to infrastructure for the mounting, maintenance and support of Access

Points. The value of this right of way will be influenced by many factors, including the

audience that an Access Point in that location is likely to capture. Right of way may

also include access to council networks.

• Backhaul from the perspective of using part of the Council network to deliver

backhaul to Access Points, or negotiating council use of backhaul if that is being

provisioned by the provider.

• Power for Access Points, repeaters and other network equipment.

• Allowing advertising. Advertising and direct email offers may also provide

leverage. For example, Noosa Shire Council20 permits the service provider to show a

short video ad on registration, banner ad across the top of a browser page and/or a

popup. In addition, users opt-in to direct email marketing as part of accepting the

terms and conditions of the service. A similar model is used by Google in US Public

Wi-Fi trials where users are served Google ads and asked to sign into their Google

account after a period of time.

• Sub-leasing part of Wi-Fi access for value-add — eg allowing a third party to run

digital signage enabled by a dedicated channel on the Wi-Fi infrastructure.

When negotiating rights, LGA needs to consider the wider strategic impact of any agreement

on any future smart city strategy eg providing exclusive rights for 10 years may impact on

the ability to deliver a smart city strategy.

The influence of these levers depends on the business model that is to be applied. Right of

way may have significant influence in negotiating a fair deal with a telecommunications

20 http://www.libraries.noosa.qld.gov.au/wireless-internet



provider, whilst it may have little or no influence in a discreet ownership or fully council

funded model.

Business models for Public Wi-Fi vary in their level of commitment for LGAs and the risks

they are exposed to. Seven models are described below.

End to end ownership. This is where Public Wi-Fi is fully owned and operated by

Council. Most often done by leveraging existing infrastructure (off unpublished CCTV

networks, expanding library Public Wi-Fi footprint out into open space and surrounding

buildings, and starting with a Public Wi-Fi SSID published from existing Access Points). Some

Councils establish new Public Wi-Fi networks to support local initiatives (such as SGSC

provisioning Public Wi-Fi to support the Virtual Treasure Map initiative at Coal Creek Historic

Park). In most cases, Wi-Fi Access Points are mounted on existing council infrastructure and

backhaul is provided through spare capacity in the existing corporate network and the

corporate pipe to the Internet.

To negotiate a better deal, LGAs may consider purchasing Access Points in larger quantities,

agree a fixed price for Access Points for a period of time out into the future (eg 2 years),

and/or negotiate greater bandwidth in connections to the Internet when service agreements

come up for renegotiation.

Discrete ownership model. This is where Council performs part of the service and a service

provider provides the rest. The elements to consider in operating a Public Wi-Fi service

include elements described in the Public Wi-Fi Architecture section. Possible scenarios of

discrete ownership include:

• LGA purchases Access Points and utilises spare capacity on the corporate network for

backhaul. A third party configures and supports the Access Points; or

• LGA supports a Public Wi-Fi service that is supplied, configured and installed by a

third party.

This model relies on clearly defining the party that delivers and supports specific elements of

the service, and who bears risk.

Alliances. Under an alliance arrangement, all parties agree to work together for a common

objective without giving up their independent status. Such an arrangement would mean that

Council and the service provider would work independently with an overarching agreement

in place. There is no common entity and sharing of profits or losses as there would be in a



partnership. Alliance contracting21 (as it is called within the context of State Government) is

characterised by a number of key features, which generally require that the parties work

together in good faith, act with integrity and make best-for-project decisions. These

arrangements are typically used by State Government for projects over $50M and thus are

not observed as a business model used for Public Wi-Fi. Councils may find that establishing

an alliance contract may be problematic, in that it is a contractual vehicle that can be

complex, and since it is not commonly used finance departments have little experience in

their development and management. Victorian State Government requirements for alliance

contracting are embodied within the national guidelines. More details on this can be found

within the national guidelines22.

Partnership. A Public Private Partnership23 model is characterised by a government service

being delivered through a partnership of government and private service providers. In this

model, the service is funded and operated by this partnership of government and the private

sector. Victorian Government projects must consider PPPs for investments of over $50M,

although this level of investment is unlikely to be required in the case for municipal Public

Wi-Fi. Again, for most LGAs, PPPs are likely to be complex and with little experience in

Finance to develop or manage against such agreements.

A partnership model may be viable for an LGA for the provision of Public Wi-Fi if the value of

the relationship is likely to be significant (eg providing Public Wi-Fi through many Access

Points across the municipality) and procurement advice is obtained from government

procurement specialists (eg from DSDBI). The extent of leverage that a Council has available

must be understood before commencing discussions. Given that telecommunications

providers are keen to capture Wi-Fi users through a public offering, LGAs may find value in

releasing an EOI to the market for the establishment of such a partnership. An MOU is

sometimes used to define the relationship between an LGA and a third party (see the City of

Melbourne case study).

Globally, popularity in PPPs is waning24, with many government organisations opting towards

joint government initiatives.

In addition, a partnership model is worth considering when looking to capitalise on the

strengths of other agencies and not for profit organisations. One example is council

21 http://www.dtf.vic.gov.au/Infrastructure-Delivery/Alliance-and-traditional-contracting 22 http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/infrastructure/nacg/files/National_Guide_to_Alliance_Contracting04July.pdf 23 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public%E2%80%93private_partnership 24 http://slg.sagepub.com/content/45/4/240



considering a partnership arrangement with the regional library corporation in their

municipality25.

Fully outsourced, where full operation and risk associated in running the service is borne by

the service provider. All aspects of the service (ie all elements described in the Public Wi-Fi

Architecture section) would be provided for and managed by the service provider. Along

with this, Council may lose a degree of control. An example of such a service may be

through organisations such as:

• iiNet details of current hotspots26 or more details on their service offering27

• Aruba28

• Telstra Wi-Fi Nation29 (see related press article30)

• Optus31 (offering under development)

• Easyweb Digital32

• BigAir Community Broadband33 - ACU, Noosa Shire Council, Sunshine Coast Regional

Council

Community network. Community networks are typically organised as networks, where

Access Points with backhaul make this backhaul available for all other Access Points in

range. This means that collective backhaul bandwidth can be shared across all users that are

connected to any Access Point in the mesh.

For LGAs, community networks provide a means for supporting Public Wi-Fi at little or no

cost. In addition, Council is exposed to little or no risk – particularly if funding is provided

through a community development grant (for example). See Goulburn Mulwaree Council

case study for an example.

The Commotion Wireless organiser page provides a more detailed overview of community

networks.34

25 http://www.mav.asn.au/policy-services/social-community/community-

libraries/relateddocuments/Public%20libraries%20options%20paper.docx – for general information on library / LGA partnering

opportunities. 26 http://www.iinet.net.au/wifi-hotspots/connect.html 27 http://www.iinet.net.au/wifi-hotspots/about-iinet-wifi.pdf 28 http://www.arubanetworks.com/ 29 http://crowdsupport.telstra.com.au/t5/Wi-Fi-Nation-Knowledge-Base/WIFI-Nation/ta-p/396826 30 http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/545556/telstra_partners_fon_build_one_world_largest_wi-fi_networks/ 31 http://www.theage.com.au/it-pro/business-it/optus-preparing-to-enter-free-wifi-battle-20141020-118mhc.html 32 http://www.easywebdigital.com/products/wifi/municipal-wifi 33 http://www.bigaircommunitybroadband.com.au/ 34 https://commotionwireless.net/docs/cck/



Other community network configurations can include:

• Clusters – where advocacy groups encourage people to share their Internet

connection with others

• WISP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Internet_service_provider) – a network

that forwards all traffic to a link aggregation point or points that provide backhaul to

the Internet.

• Wireless User Group (WUG) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_user_group – where

participants have a closed network for their own use.

Become the ISP. The City of Burnie in Tasmania, remains the anomaly in the Australian

municipal Public Wi-Fi landscape, having created Tas Communications Unit Trust to provide

Public Wi-Fi and other communications services to local government entities in

Tasmania. This business was spawned in 2007 from its work in providing fibre and wireless

network services. To this day, Tas Communications Unit Trust is wholly owned35 by the City of

Burnie and its directors are employees of Council. This model is more likely to be applicable

in the US where municipal authorities own large scale networks and monetising capacity is a

logical next step.

35 http://www.tascom.net.au/about/Annual-Financial-Statement-2012.pdf



Case studies

Case studies are provided from a range of organisations based in Victoria, other parts of

Australia and across the globe. Whilst the focus of these case studies is on LGA

implementations (and plans for implementation), other notable case studies from other areas

of government, the not-for-profit community, and the private sector are also included.

South Gippsland Shire Council

South Gippsland Shire Council (SGSC) commenced the efforts to introduce Public Wi-Fi with

a trial that covered the town centre of Leongatha. This trial was well publicised through local

media, but suffered from low take-up. The trial concluded after three months and the

service was subsequently turned off. SGSC is now implementing a more permanent Public

Wi-Fi service covering the tourist destination of Coal Creek Historic Park to support a virtual

treasure hunt offering for patrons of the park.

SGSC also provide Public Wi-Fi through their libraries, and this service is a ticket based

system (ie password to access provided over the counter) provided by the West Gippsland

Library Group.

Implementation phases

Trial

SGSC conducted a Public Wi-Fi trial in the centre of Leongatha, running for one month from

14 August to 14 September 2014, and was the only Public Wi-Fi action in the SGSC Annual

Plan for 2014/15. One Access Point was deployed from the Memorial Hall and provided

service down McCartin St and the Bass Hwy. The service was provided by Ruckus36 as a

managed service. In using the service, users were greeted with a splash page upon

connecting to the service that asked some simple demographic questions followed by a

redirect to the SGSC Facebook page along with an invite to like the page. The launch of this

Public Wi-Fi trial was done at the same time as the launch of the SGSC Facebook page and

the 'selfie' promotion - where the community was invited to take a picture of themselves and

post it on the SGSC Facebook page with the chance of winning prizes.

Terms and conditions of the Public Wi-Fi trial were provided by Ruckus as part of the

managed service. They also provided content filtering. There was no traffic blocking or

shaping although these may be considered if a more permanent service is implemented in

the future. Creating of the splash page and the redirect to the SGSC Facebook page seemed

36 http://www.ruckuswireless.com/press/releases/20100726-apac-expansion



to take longer than expected. The existing SGSC corporate network was used for

backhaul. The cost of the trial was $3,500. There was an additional charge for more detailed

statistics, of which SGSC did not decide to purchase.

During the trial, the Public Wi-Fi service received an average of 7 connections per

day. Negligible bandwidth was consumed. The most popular device OS that connected to

the service was iOS, followed by Android and was used by equal numbers of males and

females. The service was more frequently used by people in the 30 to 35 age bracket.

Coal Creek Public Wi-Fi

SGSC have recently deployed Public Wi-Fi across the Coal Creek Historic Park. One Access

Point is provided in the main building (at the entrance of the park) and another further into

the park. This implementation is being soft trialled for a few weeks - with no

advertising. Staff have been informed that it is available, whilst the public learn of it

surreptitiously. The intention of this Wi-Fi service is to support a virtual treasure map

offering - that has recently received Council funding and approval to proceed.

SGSC settled on using Cisco Meraki Wi-Fi Access Points because of their purchase cost (cost

of devices at Coal Creek is around $6,500), free support upon purchase, ease of

implementation, flexibility of configuration and reporting functionality. Their cost

effectiveness means that SGSC are likely to purchase and implement extra units to expand

the footprint of this network across the park and into the adjoining township of

Korumburra. The units were configured within the IT department before being deployed

onsite.

The existing 2Mbps link between SGSC headquarters and the Coal Creek Historic Park

(provided by Aussie Broadband) was increased to 20Mbps to provide headroom for backhaul

for the new Public Wi-Fi service.

The future

In the shorter term, SGSC is looking to reinstate a Public Wi-Fi service in the centre of

Leongatha as a permanent service - most likely using Cisco Meraki Access Points that are

provisioned and managed by the IT department. This will be done once extra capacity is

provisioned in Council's primary Internet connection (to increase from 50 to 100

Mbps). SGSC are also looking to explore possible avenues for funding the upfront purchase

of Access Points. One possible opportunity is to access RDV funding (where they were

offering funding of 3 to 1 for regional digital initiatives). Council's intention is if they can



secure external funding to purchase Access Points, then Council will provide backhaul

through the corporate network and provide ongoing support through the IT department.

Beyond the Coal Creek Historic Park, SGSC intend to expand Public Wi-Fi into the main retail

precinct of Korumburra. An Access Point would be placed on the telecommunications tower

at the western end of town, with more along the main street. This service would also provide

an alternative way of accessing the Internet for Council staff in the event of disaster. In such

a case, SGSC would reclaim the service for Council use only. Even though Council provision

devices and provide ongoing management of the service, there is a question on who pays

for powering the devices. Some businesses in Korumburra are happy to absorb this cost.

SGSC would then like to expand Public Wi-Fi to Foster (to support Community Forums and

tourism).

The real benefit that Public Wi-Fi provides communities in SGSC is yet to be

understood. During the trial, SGSC believed that some businesses would do away with their

Internet service. But what they observed was that businesses stayed with their current

service provider, and some decided to provide a free Wi-Fi service of their own.

In the medium term, any Public Wi-Fi service needs to provide benefits that support ongoing

investment. But as long as the Public Wi-Fi service delivers a service that meets Council

expectations, then IT will continue to support rollout of more Public Wi-Fi Access Points off

the corporate network backbone. In addition, it will continue to look for ways to increase

backhaul bandwidth where this makes economic sense.

Take-aways

• Take-up of Public Wi-Fi can be slow, even if the service is well publicised. This is

particularly noted in an area where the use of Wi-Fi enabled mobile devices is limited

(Leongatha is situated amongst a traditional farming community).

• One sustainable path for providing Public Wi-Fi seems to be where the service is used

to support a local application (in this case, a virtual treasure map) and where spare

capacity on a council's corporate network is utilised for backhaul.

• Cisco Meraki Access Points provide control with no ongoing cost. Meraki is suited

where network administration is performed in-house.

Acknowledgement: Raelene Bennett, Manager Information Systems and Support, South

Gippsland Shire Council, [email protected]



East Gippsland Shire Council

East Gippsland Shire Council (EGSC) provides a Public Wi-Fi service at council buildings and

libraries, as well as providing the service at two Council managed caravan parks. EGSC is

exploring alternatives for providing Public Wi-Fi along the main retail precinct in Bairnsdale,

but is yet to confirm a business model for such a service. As such, funding is yet to be

secured.

Current Situation

EGSC provides Public Wi-Fi at Customer Service Centres in major towns and at municipal

libraries. The service in most cases extends around 50m into the surrounding open space to

encourage a free flowing space that attracts people into and out of council buildings. EGSC

also provides Public Wi-Fi at two Council managed caravan parks - Mallacoota and Eagle

Point. The SSID of "Public" is used at all council buildings as a Public Wi-Fi channel. Other

SSIDs available are: Staff, Councillors and Contractors - all with different levels of

access. Backhaul for the Public Wi-Fi service in each building is through a separate ADSL2

network connection to that used for traffic related to other EGSC corporate SSIDs.

Public Wi-Fi usage in Council buildings is restricted to web browsing and streaming media

traffic is blocked. All other sites that offer EGSC Public Wi-Fi have open and unrestricted

access (eg caravan parks). In Council buildings and libraries, HP MSM460 series Access

Points were deployed. Content filtering for council buildings and libraries is provided

through a Tesserent appliance on site. Cisco Meraki Access Points are used at caravan

parks. EGSC believe Cisco Meraki devices provide more granular control than the HP Access

Points, whilst being easy to setup and deploy. Content filtering for caravan parks is provided

by the ISP that provides backhaul for these Public Wi-Fi Access Points.

Libraries have basic filtering rules in place to prevent the viewing of pornography or the

downloading of viruses. Access provided at Caravan Parks is open (with no content filtering

rules in place) but does block Apple updates and throttle bandwidth available for YouTube

streaming down to 100kbps per session. Last summer (ie 2013/14), over 4000 unique

devices were connected to the Access Points in Mallacoota over the December and January

period.

A ticket system is used for accessing the Public Wi-Fi service at council buildings and

libraries. The password generated (and printed on a ticket) at one location can be used at all

other locations. Users of this Public Wi-Fi service can access as a guest for the first 15

minutes, then after this, must obtain a password to continue. Users must also accept a set of

terms and conditions before gaining access.



The Public Wi-Fi service is promoted by signage at the caravan parks and libraries.

The Future

EGSC plan to expand Public Wi-Fi to cover the retail precinct along the main street of

Bairnsdale. Proposals for this work have been put forward to Council, although they have

not yet been approved. There is a concern about Council offering a competing service

to local businesses offering free Wi-Fi, and thus diluting their competitive

advantage. Subsequently, proposals to expand Public Wi-Fi are on hold at this stage. If

investment in Public Wi-Fi is approved, EGSC would look to leverage their existing (and

hidden) wireless network used for CCTV cameras.

EGSC is interested in exploring shared models - whether that be sharing investment with

other councils or working together with local businesses to increase the footprint of Public

Wi-Fi across the shire. EGSC is interested also in applying a model that works for other

councils. As mentioned, there is no funding currently available for expanding Public Wi-Fi

services. EGSC is relying upon renegotiation of communication link agreements as they

expire to fund extra bandwidth for backhaul and to support expansion of the service

footprint.

EGSC understand that investment in Public Wi-Fi infrastructure is difficult given that much of

their population is spread along major roads rather than clustering in specific locations.

Take-aways

• Rural and remote areas have challenges in delivering Public Wi-Fi services where the

population is not clustered in towns.

• Cisco Meraki provides a cost effective solution for Public Wi-Fi Access Points.

• Holiday spots can see great demand for Public Wi-Fi services - especially where

tourists tend to remain in the same area, rather than travelling through.

Acknowledgement: Sohan Gunasekra, Manager Information Services, East Gippsland Shire

Council, [email protected]

Goulburn Mulwaree Council

This case study focuses on the Public Wi-Fi offering delivered by The Goulburn

Group (TGG)37 and that is now partially funded by Goulburn Mulwaree Council38. This Public

37 http://www.goulburngroup.com.au/wifi.php 38 http://www.goulburn.nsw.gov.au/



Wi-Fi service is essentially a community mesh network where local businesses share a

dedicated portion of their Internet backhaul for the purpose of providing Public Wi-Fi.

In addition, Goulburn Mulwaree Library provides Public Wi-Fi services through the Southern

Tablelands Library Cooperative.

History

In 2008, the TGG asked Council for financial support to implement Public Wi-Fi across the

town. The TGG echoed community sentiment of the time, being that they were disappointed

in missing out on the NBN rollout that was touted as the lifeblood of rural and regional

Australia. Their initial request was to cover implementation costs of $16,000 and ongoing

operational costs of $6,000 per annum. Council were worried about the legal implications

(specifically their legal liability) of funding such a service. The proposal was later rejected.

A subsequent proposal39 was put forward for Council to fund a total project cost of

$20,000. This proposal was also rejected.

In March 2013, TGG launched Goulburn Free Wireless - where one business in the main

street provided backhaul through spare capacity in their broadband connection, and two

other businesses provided relay services. TGG found that many businesses had business

Internet plans that provided 200 to 500 Gb of downloads per month and that they were

using only a small percentage of this capacity (some as low as 10% of total download

capacity). Goulburn Free Wi-Fi project co-ordinator Alex Ferrara developed software that

helps ensure participating businesses stay within their data limits.

The service relies upon businesses across the Goulburn area to donate bandwidth and for

volunteers to supply labour to setup new Access Points and manage the network. Council

now invests $3,000 per annum40 for the next three years to help develop and grow the

network. This is provided as a grant with no implied responsibility or liability.

Current state

In June, TGG reported41 that the service had 8624 connections from 4110 unique devices

over the Monday Bank Holiday (12 June 2014). The service is provided through 12 Access

Points across the town (with one located in a wetlands area to help encourage tourists to

39 http://www.goulburnpost.com.au/story/968052/free-wifi-set-for-cbd/ 40 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-18/gx-free-wifi/4761806 41 http://www.goulburnpost.com.au/story/2347665/goulburn-free-wi-fi-proves-popular/



take photos of wildlife and in turn attract more visitors). The wetlands Access Point is solar

powered with backhaul provided from the Eastgrove Childcare Centre.

TGG monitor network use to ensure that bandwidth limits are not exceeded. They allow

traffic important for social networking, including emails, Facebook, Twitter, Viber and

Skype. In addition, they discourage large file downloads.

Businesses choose how to deliver the service to users from their Access Point. One

alternative is free and open access. A voucher system to control access is also

offered. Vouchers can be shared with other participating businesses, in a way promoting

other businesses that offer the Public Wi-Fi service.

Resources

• More details of the TGG implementation of Public Wi-Fi as provided by Dr Ian

McShane - http://portal.lgict.net/download/the-goulburn-group-case-

study/%20%E2%80%8EE.

• Wireless in the wetlands - ABC Rural interview with TGG chairman Urs Walterlin -

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-20/wifi-in-the-wetlands-at-goulburn/5104768

• A blog of research material collected by Dr Ian McShane and others that includes

more details on Goulburn Public Wi-Fi -

http://publicwifiaustralia.wordpress.com/goulburn/

Take-aways

• Community mesh networks can be robust and sustainable.

• They rely upon proponents within the community that can drive growth and have the

trust of the local business community. They also rely on volunteers to grow and

manage ongoing operations of the network.

• Council can support such networks with little risk through a community development

grant (all borne by TGG and business owners in this case).

City of Melbourne

The City of Melbourne is one of three councils participating in the State Government Public

Wi-Fi Trial (the other two being City of Ballarat and City of Greater Bendigo). This case study

focuses on the Public Wi-Fi journey City of Melbourne have undertaken to this point, as well

as their perspective on participating in the trial.



Background

City of Melbourne added a Council Plan action to explore the possibility of implementing

Public Wi-Fi. Council embarked upon a Public Wi-Fi leadership initiative at the time where

they reviewed much of the available research with the view of understanding how they could

deliver a free service in a sustainable way that also supported business development across

the CBD. This research did not yield enough direct evidence to suggest that Public Wi-Fi

could be sustainable (eg community mesh networks were investigated but sufficient

backhaul was going to be difficult to secure). Nonetheless, City of Melbourne wanted to trial

a service to obtain actual information about potential take-up and usage. They were in the

planning stages of undertaking a trial with Telstra and were close to deciding upon sites for

Access Points when the State Government asked City of Melbourne to participate in their

Public Wi-Fi trial. Subsequently, State Government announced the trial in March 2014. City

of Ballarat and City of Greater Bendigo were later included.

An EOI for implementing and supporting the service for three years was released to the

market, led by the Department of State Development, Business and Innovation

(DSDBI). iiNet was awarded the contract on 24 October 2014.

EOI details

Under the contract with the State Government, iiNet will provide end point access to the

Internet over Wi-Fi at a total price of $6.7M. iiNet is responsible for provisioning and

maintaining all Access Points and backhaul for the term of the contract. Access Points will be

mounted on council infrastructure (including light poles and buildings). Council also

provides power for Access Points. High level design has been agreed, and detailed design is

currently underway (as of 23 December 2014). Two initial Access Points at Queen Victoria

Market were commissioned in the week of 17 November 2014 and are now

operational. Rollout of the full network will take around 15 months to complete. The

contract requires iiNet to deliver the service within a set of SLAs that will be agreed during

the course of the project. iiNet is also responsible for collecting data on usage and providing

details to City of Melbourne so that they may better understand the behaviour of users.

An MoU and Facilities Access Agreement defines the relationship between City of

Melbourne, iiNet and State Government. Under the MoU, City of Melbourne are able to use

this new network for connecting city services (inc the 5000+ remote sensors located across

the CBD). Some services will also be offered to other government buildings.

City of Melbourne is seeking a service that provides seamless access to the Internet for

users. They believe that the service will help visitors upload photos, share stories and



promote Melbourne as a place to visit. They also believe that more work needs to be done

to understand use cases of Public Wi-Fi usage so that the service can be optimised to service

these use cases. For example, there is unlikely to be a need for Public Wi-Fi access along city

streets in the middle of winter. At this stage, the benefit of Public Wi-Fi is not clear.

Service details

The service is designed so as to provide minimal barriers to up-take and usage. A set of

terms and conditions will need to be accepted before access is provided to the service. iiNet

are responsible for providing the filtering of illegal content and to block app traffic.

There is no planned interoperability between this Public Wi-Fi network and others across the

city (including that offered in Federation Square by the Fed Square Corporation).

Resources

• Presentation on the Victorian Free Public Wi-Fi Pilot from DSDBI -

http://portal.lgict.net/download/victorian-free-public-wifi-pilot.

Take-aways

• Understanding why Public Wi-Fi is important for achieving a successful outcome.

• Access to council assets and granting of rights of way provide councils with leverage

in negotiating Public Wi-Fi agreements with telecommunication carriers.

• In turn, councils should consider negotiating access to the Public Wi-Fi network for

council operational use.

Acknowledgements: Colin Fairweather, Chief Information Officer, City of Melbourne,

[email protected], and Lorraine Tighe, Smart City and Innovation

Program Manager, Business Information Services Branch, City of Melbourne,

[email protected]

City of Port Phillip

The City of Port Phillip (CoPP) currently provides a Public Wi-Fi service from their municipal

library. In addition, they have commenced planning to grow this service into public open

spaces and retail precincts.

Background

CoPP currently provides a Public Wi-Fi service out of their municipal library - the footprint of

which provides coverage for areas in Council buildings facing the library. The service is very



popular, with people sitting on the steps of the library after it closes to use the service. The

service is switched off in the late evening. In general, the performance of the public Internet

service (including Public Wi-Fi and through fixed library PCs) is poor – attributable to

insufficient backhaul capacity. There is no policy in place for restricting or limiting the type

of content that can be consumed.

In response to growing interest and lack of performance in current offerings, CoPP has

established a Public Wi-Fi Working Group. The group is chartered with the responsibility of

identifying service offering opportunities (including open public spaces, courtyards and

plazas); establishing a viable standardised service framework and developing business cases.

The working group are also working closely with the South Melbourne Market (being a CoPP

managed facility) and the Meetings and Events team (public venues).

South Melbourne Market provides Public Wi-Fi under a similar model used by Brisbane City

Council. Easyweb.com provide the captive portal and manage download limits.

Council is helping local businesses understand how business Public Wi-Fi might benefit

them. Many businesses have complained that the commercial quotes they have been

provided are too expensive. The drivers for business Public Wi-Fi are slightly different, in

needing a service that provides free access and encourages patronage (ie not necessarily

interested in providing a service for public good). They need a service that can scale in times

of demand (such as around the Christmas holiday period). CoPP developed an Investment

Logic Map42– that helps stakeholders understand the drivers for implementing Public Wi-Fi

in a range of contexts.

Plans for the future

In anticipation of future demand, the Business Technology department of CoPP are looking

to improve the flexibility and pricing of their Internet service provision. They have recently

gone to the market for elastic pricing (the ability to scale up and down the size of their

Internet connection on a monthly basis) with no data charges. Once this is in place,

additional capacity can be provided to the library for a fee. Other business units looking to

increase the footprint of Public Wi-Fi will need to provide a business case and have funding

set aside for all costs.

In addition, they are ensuring replacement data switches that make up the corporate

network are Wi-Fi expandable, with potential capability to backhaul Wi-Fi services over

council network infrastructure where there would be no impact to Council staff (like after

hours).

42 http://mavtechnology.net/download/investment-logic-map/



Take-aways

• Consider Public Wi-Fi requirements when renewing Council network infrastructure or

network contracts.

• Commit business units to funding implementation and support costs if they want to

grow or leverage the Public Wi-Fi service. This process starts with a sound business

case.

• Understand there are different contexts for implementing Public WiFi, so there may

be a need for several services / business cases.

Detroit

Detroit is a city of contrasts. Downturns in the automotive and manufacturing sectors and

decades of underinvestment in public infrastructure have resulted in many communities of

disadvantage. Research suggests that more than half of the community do not have access

to the Internet. On the other hand, Detroit is being seen across the US (and globally) as a

centre of innovation. It has a significant student population and an active bohemian culture.

It has long been a centre of creative pursuits, being the home of some well renowned artists.

At the heart of this push for innovation is the philosophy of helping people help themselves,

being driven by not for profit community groups. Public Wi-Fi underpins this innovation,

providing the community with access to a resource that is important for their growth and

prosperity.

There are three major Community Public Wi-Fi network initiatives being run out of the

Detroit area.

Cass Corridor

The Cass Corridor43 Public Wi-Fi network44 connects low-income apartment buildings,

community centres, churches and businesses in the Cass Corridor district and is the testing

ground for Commotion Wireless – an open source mesh solution by the New America

Foundation's Open Technology Institute (OTI). This network has ties to similar networks in

North Corktown, and 48217 neighbourhoods. The network was funded by the John S and

James L Knight Foundation and the US State Department. The State Department sees access

to the Internet as a tool for community empowerment. They are keen for this technology to

be deployed in Syria and Egypt so these communities can still talk to each other and the

outside world if their governments restrict access to the web45.

North Corktown

The Digital Justice Coalition (DJC)46 coordinated the deployment of a community mesh

network into the North Corktown area in June 2010. Called the Hot Mesh initiative, it was

43 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cass_Corridor 44 http://cassco.co/ 45 https://gigaom.com/2012/12/18/detroit-is-the-testing-ground-for-a-new-open-source-wireless-network-technology/ 46 http://detroitdjc.org/



brought into being through a partnership of seven groups, being: the local community,

resident technologists, a local business that provided a collaborative space, the residents

association providing a platform for community improvements, Allied Media Projects and

DJC people provided additional capacity and community outreach to adjoining areas, OTI

provided technical support and hardware, and peer projects such as gowasabi.net,

51Open.org, and CUWiN.net shared lessons learnt from similar implementations they had

done.

See

http://newamerica.net/publications/special/a_community_wireless_mesh_prototype_in_detroi

t_mi_34925 for more details on this project, including costs and the story of how this project

evolved.

48217 neighbourhood

The 48217 neighbourhood is a Detroit district that is the home of a robust and close-knit

network of neighbourhood organisations, or block clubs. Their initial intention was for block

captains to form the backbone of the network using wireless routers on rooftops. Then

other members of the community could participate with a wireless router on their window

sill. This Community network is still in the community consultation phase and is work-in-

progress47.

More details on the 48217 neighbourhood initiatives can be found at

http://www.globalmediapolicy.net/node/1218, especially relating to the process that the OTI

used to engage the community and the challenges they face.

Take-aways

• Community networks help communities help themselves. New modes of civic

engagement become possible that strengthen local social fabric and provide

opportunities for local applications.

• Community networks rely upon trust.

• Councils can get involved in a small (eg grant funding) or more significant way (eg

being the facilitator of community networks).

General references

• Detroit is becoming the lab for wireless innovation -

http://oti.newamerica.net/pressroom/2012/advisory_detroit_breaking_ground_as_lab_

for_wireless_innovation.

• More on Detroit community Wi-Fi initiatives and how they are rebuilding

communities can be found at

http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/10/detroit_mesh_networks.html

47 http://detroitdjc.org/?page_id=175



• Allied Media Projects (https://alliedmedia.org/) runs the Digital Stewards Program

(http://detroitdigitalstewards.tumblr.com/) across the Detroit region to build local

capacity and understanding in Wi-Fi networks.

San Francisco Bay Area

The San Francisco Bay area is well known as a centre of creativity and innovation in this

digital age. And as such, it is no surprise that many Public Wi-Fi ventures have come and

gone in this part of the world. This case study provides an overview of two notable Public

Wifi offerings.

Silicon Valley Unwired

Silicon Valley Unwired48 is a not for profit community group made up of engineers and

entrepreneurs, and was founded by Andrew Gold49 and Karl Garcia.

This network was first introduced in the city of Milpitas (CA) in June 2009 and uses over 300

Access Points previously installed by EarthLink Inc. Earthlink failed in their attempt in 2007 to

provide subscriber based Internet services across the US, including in Milpitas50. Earthlink

handed over these Access Points to the City of Milpitas after they decided that they could

not turn a profit. International Network Solutions is the operator and Google is the major

service contributor. Financial backing was provided by the City of Milpitas for upgrading the

network in mid-2014. This network is similar to the free Public Wi-Fi network provided by

Google in Mountain View (CA) – now decommissioned, see below. The service publishes a

support email address that is monitored but not always answered. The network uses one

SSID (SVUPublicWiFi) with open authentication and no encryption. Users eventually need a

Google account to login.

More detail of the service can be found at

http://www.ci.milpitas.ca.gov/government/is/wifi_service.asp

Google Wi-Fi

Google Wi-Fi was introduced in Mountain View (the home of Google) on 16 August 2006. In

2009, Google Wi-Fi served over 16,000 unique visitors a month and averaged downloads of

500Gb over a 24 hour period. In addition, Google provided free VPN software (known as

Google Access Secure) to help users secure their connection. Users were given a unique IP

address leased for one hour from a DHCP pool. One SSID was available, being GoogleWiFi

(wifi.google.com). Plagued with service interruptions in late 2013, the Mountain View

48 http://www.svunwired.com/ 49 https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewjgold 50 http://www.mercurynews.com/milpitas/ci_24978059/milpitas-free-wi-fi-service-is-restored



network was shut down on 3 May 2014 and is to be replaced by another outdoor network

that will focus on the Castro Street retail corridor of Mountain View51.

No direct support was provided to users, although the service website did provide a number

to leave a message. Users are made aware these messages were monitored but not all

messages would be responded to.

Yarra Plenty Regional Library

Yarra Plenty Regional Library has provided Public Wi-Fi to its patrons since 2008. They

started in one branch, with a single Access Point and the service was only available to

laptops.

Access to the service is provided via a patron’s library card.

The Library uses several SSIDs. The standard public "Library Wi-Fi" is the same no matter

what branch you are in. "Library Staff" is on a different VLAN, authenticated through Active

Directory. "Library Devices" is a hidden SSID used for library managed Apple TVs and in-

branch equipment. They avoid changing the password on this SSID. In addition, there is the

"Library Building" SSID – used by environmental equipment to connect and report to base,

without requiring a direct connection to the network.

Technical details

The Public Wi-Fi service provides downloads of 2.6 Tb per month (as recorded in October

2014). They estimate that this backhaul consumes most of the capacity of 3 NBN

(100/40Mbps) services, and costs around $480 per month. Access Points are licensed, as

required, and the hardware-controller-replacing virtual vWLAN appliance is free. Yarra Plenty

Regional Library believes that their Public Wi-Fi service supports download volumes greater

than any other public library in the state.

The Library uses Adtran Bluesocket vWLAN52 controllers for providing central management

functions – including captive portal, intelligent traffic routing and Wireless Intrusion

Detection (W-IDS). This software also provides authentication of users over SIP. Reporting is

done by Wi-Fi Reporter53 (by International Network Engineers Pty Ltd). Developed by Les

Firth, Wi-Fi Reporter is based on Microsoft Excel and was specifically developed for

Bluesocket appliances and solutions. Sample reports for Wi-Fi Reporter can be found at

51 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Wi-Fi 52 https://www.adtran.com/web/page/portal/Adtran/product/1951900G1/4044 53 http://www.ine.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=105&Itemid=103



https://plus.google.com/photos/116753836722190679227/albums/5456177983842867761?a

uthkey=CKSBv8a02vXegQE

The future

The Library do now have Library Wi-Fi available around their Bookmobile. With no ability to

authenticate patrons, no password will be needed. They see that this sort of portable facility

would be good to bring in to towns that have been cut off from the outside world by some

form of local disaster.

Take-aways

• vWLAN solutions provide benefits for large, distributed Wi-Fi networks.

• Aggregated reporting solutions can help in overall capacity planning and decision-

making about the network.

• Yarra Plenty Regional Library believes that they are the largest provider of Public Wifi

when compared with other local government authorities (in download throughput

per month).

Acknowledgement: Les Firth, Yarra Plenty Regional Library, [email protected]



A carrier perspective

Carriers benefit from offloading 3G and 4G traffic onto Wi-Fi networks as it relieves the strain

on these mobile networks and thus slows down the rate of infrastructure investment

required. Mobile data usage is predicted to grow exponentially, and in turn, investment in

infrastructure should grow along with this. Given mobile data infrastructure is more costly

than Wi-Fi infrastructure per Mb downloaded, carriers are now investing in efforts to migrate

traffic where possible to Wi-Fi.

Wireless 20|2054 believe that carriers can achieve a positive ROI in densely populated areas

(like New York) when 20% of this geographic area is covered by Wi-Fi services. In less

densely populated areas (like San Diego), an ROI was maximised with 40% coverage of the

geographic area and an AP density of 24 APs per square km.

Capturing indoor Wi-Fi solutions seem to be the most cost effective for carriers. Providing

sufficient backhaul for outdoor Wi-Fi installations can be cost prohibitive.

Movement in this space has begun with Telstra announcing their plans for a Public Wi-Fi

offering and Optus looking to select prime areas to rollout their public Wi-Fi solution.

Carriers overseas have beginning to bundle WISPr (Wireless Internet Service Provider

roaming) clients with their smartphone offerings. Carriers, in the short term, will look to

capture users in specific geographic areas to maximise their ROI in shifting to Wi-Fi.

Particularly in the in the shorter term, LGAs have an opportunity to capitalise on this need by

offering, in particular, right-of-way in exchange for Council use of the service. Additional

levers available to LGAs are discussed further in the Business Model Details section of this

document.

General references

• A business case for carrier offload to Wi-Fi

http://www.wireless2020.com/docs/CarrierWiFiOffloadWhitePaper03202012.pdf.

Includes details of some case studies (US)

• http://www.analysysmason.com/Research/Custom/Webinars/Wi-Fi-offload-webinar-

Feb2012/Slides/

54 http://wireless2020.com/



Telstra

Telstra is working on a strategy for providing widespread Public Wi-Fi services across

Australia. This will be delivered through Public Private Partnerships and through their retail

and SME Bigpond customer network. Their Public Wi-Fi offering is called Wi-Fi Nation and,

in essence, provides:

• One SSID for Public Wi-Fi access across Australia

• Over 1000 Wi-Fi Nation enabled Access Points, and expecting around 8000 enabled

Access Points by the end of 2015.

• Regulated download. Once limit is reached, customers can opt to consume their

remaining download amount from their home Bigpond account. Those that are not a

Telstra Bigpond customer can purchase a day pass to increase their download limit.

• Customers now have the option to upgrade their existing Bigpond Wi-Fi router for

one that is Wi-Fi Nation ready (ie pushes out Telstra’s Public Wi-Fi SSID).

Their preference is to partner with LGAs, and other organisations, rather than to participate

in a tender process. As part of a partnership with an LGA, Telstra is prepared to discuss

options such as joint management of SSIDs, and where Telstra Free Wi-Fi may be routed to

another network (independent of an LGA’s corporate network).

Telstra believe that any Public Wi-Fi service must be sustainable and that an advertising

partnership will not work for LGAs.

Telstra is also considering other offerings in the future, including an Enterprise Wi-Fi offering

Out-of-the-Box, and mesh topologies for home networks.

Telstra has recently signed a partnership with Fon55 for providing international Wi-Fi roaming

access for Bigpond customers.

Other resources

• More details on Telstra’s initial plans for offering Public Wi-Fi at

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/companies/telstra-begins-trial-of-100m-

wifi-network/story-fn91v9q3-1227074957358

• Discussion on Telstra partnership with Fon

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/2323485

• More on Telstra’s Wi-Fi plans

http://www.blogcentral.rmit.edu.au/2014/10/customers-to-provide-hotspots-in.html,

55 http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2014/5/27/technology/real-reason-telstras-building-public-wi-fi-network



http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/545656/telstra_100m_wi-

fi_network_everything_need_know/

Acknowledgement: Derived from a discussion with Peter Barnett, Business Development

Executive, Global Enterprise and Services, Telstra

Optus

Optus are looking to cherry-pick areas for Public Wi-Fi through arrangements with LGAs

rather than establish a national network – as being developed by Telstra.

More on Optus plans for introducing Public Wi-Fi at http://www.theage.com.au/it-

pro/business-it/optus-preparing-to-enter-free-wifi-battle-20141020-118mhc.html

Vodafone

At this stage, Vodafone seem to have no publicly available plans for releasing a Public Wi-Fi

offering.



Implementation Guidelines

This section includes specific guidance on designing, implementing and supporting Public

Wi-Fi services for LGAs.

In a partnership model, many of these requirements will be performed by the service

provider. In a council funded model, Council may wish to consider the implications of the

regulation provided below whilst also obtaining specialist legal advice.

Please note. The information provided in this section is offered as a guide only. It is the

author's interpretation of how these legislative and regulatory instruments may influence

Public Wi-Fi design and operation. The information provided below does not constitute legal

advice. You should always consult a legal specialist if you need to understand how these

instruments may specifically affect you and your organisation.

This section does not establish any compliance requirements for Public Wi-Fi services. This

section does provide a high level overview on the applicable legislative and regulatory

environment. If there is a conflict between the requirements outlined in this section and any

requirements imposed on a Public Wi-Fi service provider through regulation, then the

requirements of regulation take precedence.

Legislation and Regulation

This section discusses the instruments of legislation and regulation that may influence Public

Wi-Fi design and operation for LGAs.

Sometimes the legislative and regulatory requirements of Public Wi-Fi service providers can

be unclear, particularly given that in some cases, Public Wi-Fi services can be deemed by

ACMA as requiring a Carrier license, or the less onerous Carrier Service Provider license.

Privacy Act

In the operation of Public Wi-Fi, some organisations seek to collect information about how

the service is used and who uses the service – and this is fair and reasonable for monitoring

the performance and managing the service. But if the information collected can be

reasonably used to identify an individual, then provisions of the Privacy Act apply.

The ALRC in their report For Your Information: Australian Privacy Law and Practice (ALRC

Report 108) 56state their view that "while…IP addresses may not be personal information for

56 http://www.alrc.gov.au/publications/6.%20The%20Privacy%20Act%3A%20Some%20Important%20Definitions/what-

%E2%80%98personal-information%E2%80%99



the purposes of the Privacy Act, such information may become personal information in

certain circumstances" (see para 6.60 for more details). In the context of Public Wi-Fi,

personally identifiable information may include the collection of demographic information.

Organisations that collect information that is personally identifiable in the operation of a

Public Wi-Fi service should consider the implications of the following Australian Privacy

Principles (APPs):

• APP 1 - open and transparent management. If personal information is collected, then

processes surrounding the collection and use of this information must be made

available to users.

• APP 2 - a user of the service must have the option of de-identifying themselves.

• APP 3 - personal information is only collected if there is an operational purpose for

doing so (like for the purpose of improving the service).

• APP 5 - a user must be notified that personal information will be collected during the

course of them using the service. This may be included in terms and conditions that

a user must agree to before using the service.

• APP 6 - personal information collected must be used for the purpose it was intended.

• APP 7 - personal information cannot be used for the purpose of direct marketing,

unless they provide their consent (although there are some exceptions to this).

• APP 10 - personal information collected must be maintained to ensure that it is

accurate, up-to-date and complete.

• APP 11 - must have appropriate security measures in place to protect against misuse,

interference or loss, and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

• APP 12 - must provide personal information relating to a user if that user requests it

(although, there are exceptions).

More details of the 13 Australian Privacy Principles are described in Schedule 1 of the Privacy

Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Act 2012, which amends the Privacy Act 1988,

can be found at http://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/privacy-resources/privacy-fact-

sheets/other/privacy-fact-sheet-17-australian-privacy-principles.

Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (TIA)

The TIA Act prohibits the interception of communications or the access of stored

communications, although law enforcement and security agencies are able to access this

information under warrant. More details can be found at

http://www.ag.gov.au/NationalSecurity/TelecommunicationsSurveillance/Pages/default.aspx



Telecommunications Act 1997 (Cth)

If an organisation provides carriage of information over a Wi-Fi network for the public, then

that organisation may be considered as a Carrier or Carriage Service Provider under the Act

and as such has some level of obligation. The Australian Communications and Media

Authority is the regulator for radio communication spectrum and requirements as defined in

this Act.

ACMA

A Carrier License may be required by the provider of a Public Wi-Fi network if (as stated on

the ACMA website57) the provider:

� Receives any direct or indirect reward, monetary or other, for use by

others of your network equipment.

� Has a contract or any other agreement (verbal or written) with parties

involved in the use of the network, dealing, for example, with the

payment of money and performance obligations.

� Uses the network for the purpose of making a profit.

� Has an ABN for use in connection with the operation of the network.

If any of the above apply, then advice should be sought from ACMA. If there is a charge at

any stage for the service then the operator may be considered a Carrier. A charge for

merchandisers to advertise may be one way around this whilst still keeping the service free

to end users. If unsure, advice should be sought from ACMA.

Carrier Service Providers (CSPs) do not require a licence to operate but do have obligations

under the Act that may include:

• Membership of the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman scheme;

• Ability to intercept communications as required by the Telecommunications

(Interception and Access) Act 1979 (the TIA Act); and

• Protection of customer information, as detailed in the Privacy Act.

There are also other obligations for CSPs operating paid services (like the consumer

protection code and submitting compliance statements and plans to CommCom58) which

may not be directly relevant for local government Public Wi-Fi operators.

57 http://www.acma.gov.au/Citizen/Consumer-info/My-connected-home/Wireless-local-area-networks/wireless-lans-licensing-

requirements-i-acma 58 http://www.commcom.com.au/



If there is the ability to make calls over a Public Wi-Fi service, then there is an argument that

a CSP must also support emergency calling59.

Many organisations in Australia providing Public Wi-Fi define prohibited content as it is

defined in the national classification scheme. At present if an end user is identified as

accessing prohibited content via a Wi-Fi network then the party with the legal responsibility

for identifying the offender has not been tested60.

Other requirements

Other legislative requirements to consider when provisioning a Public Wi-Fi service include:

• Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act 1999 (Cth);

• Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth); and

• Radiocommunications Act 1992 (Cth)

Proposed changes to the access of and retention of metadata

Discussion on what constitutes metadata, and the impact of changes proposed by the

Abbott Government.

http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library

/FlagPost/2014/August/Access_to_and_retention_of_Internet_metadata

59 http://www.commsalliance.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/36010/Public-Wi-Fi-Networks-information-paper-May-

2012.pdf, page 10 60 http://www.commsalliance.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/36010/Public-Wi-Fi-Networks-information-paper-May-

2012.pdf, page 12



Terms and Conditions

It is common practice across Australian and international Public Wi-Fi service providers to

require users to accept a set of terms and conditions before using the service for the first

time. For providers in Australia, terms and conditions are a good place to meet collection

and disclosure requirements (as required under the Privacy Act) and to notify users of

limitations in liability. Terms and conditions are also a good place for outlining what level of

service will be offered, and setting service expectations.

This section summarises the salient points of Public Wi-Fi terms and conditions of services

across Australia for the purpose of identifying aspects that are common and should be

included in terms and conditions for new Public Wi-Fi services. This section concludes with

recommendations that an LGA may consider for inclusion in the terms and conditions they

use for their Public Wi-Fi service.

Internode standard61

• No guarantee over the quality or level of service

• May change the service at any time

• Not for business or commercial use

• User takes responsibility for the content they consume over the service

• Not to be used to expose minors to material unsuitable for them

• Operator may ask user for ID at any time

• Abide by all applicable law

• Users use the service at their own risk

• User indemnifies provider of any liability relating to direct or indirect damages,

negligence, etc

• No control over content

Queensland Museum62

• No guarantee of quality of service

• Requires acceptance of terms and conditions before using the service

• Unacceptable use includes: unauthorised monitoring or access to museum

information or systems

61 http://www.internode.on.net/pdf/legal/internode-hotspot-end-user-terms.pdf 62

http://www.qm.qld.gov.au/Visit+Us/Facilities/Wireless+Internet/Wireless+Internet+Public+Access+Terms+and+Conditions#.VI5

dqVWUdew



• Accessing, downloading or printing pornographic or other offensive material,

detailed in the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 1995

(Cth)

• Use of filtering to block known offensive sites (inc gambling and gaming

sites). Responsibility of avoiding these sites lies with the user

• No responsibility for user devices or resulting damage that may occur from using the

service (eg due to service disruptions or downloading of viruses)

• No capture of personally identifiable information, although details of the device /

browser used is collected

• Not responsible for third parties accessing personal information over the service.

• User indemnifies the museum of any liability

• Breach of conditions may mean that the user is asked to leave the premises. Users

that refuse may be barred from future access. Illegal acts may be subject to

prosecution

Brisbane City Council (BCC)63

• No guarantee of quality of service

• Will use best efforts to ensure stable and secure access, but not obliged to do so

• Not to be used in a way that may offend the standards of the general community. In

addition, no use of websites that may cause BCC to breach any law or could interfere

with Council operations, or could reflect poorly on BCC

• Access is at own risk. No guarantee of security

• No liability for any loss

• No collecting of personally identifiable information, unless consent is given

• May collect IP and MAC address details

• Not responsible for personal information that may be collected by third parties

• User releases and indemnifies BCC

City of Sterling (WA)64

• Users under 12 years of age must have parental supervision

• User responsible for operation of Internet as it relates to their usage

• Must comply with all applicable laws including WA Classification (Publications, Film

and Computer Games) Enforcement Act and local laws.

• Retains the right to restrict access

• Not responsible for any changes made to the service or security of the service

63 http://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/facilities-recreation/parks-venues/parks/park-facilities/wi-fi-parks/wi-fi-parks-terms-

conditions 64 http://www.stirling.wa.gov.au/Pages/Wi-Fi-Terms-and-Conditions.aspx



• No liability for loss, interruptions, etc

• Failure to comply will result in suspension from the service

• Illegal acts may also be subject to prosecution

• Reserves the right to monitor traffic

State Library of Victoria65

• Not used for any illegal, unauthorised or dangerous purpose - including copying

information that may breach copyright

• No interfering or disrupting the service

• Accepts no responsibility for security. Use at user's risk

• Activity monitored in accordance of the Information Privacy Act 2000

• Users under 12 years must be supervised

• Infringements may lead to denial of access, escorted off the premises and referral to

appropriate legal authority

Sunshine Coast Regional Council66

• Reasonable endeavours to provide a reliable, stable and secure service

• Not liable if the network becomes unstable, un-secured, slow or unavailable

• To access, need to provide email address and accept terms and conditions

• Consent to receive messages (email, SMS or MMS) - an unsubscribe feature is

provided

• Third party promotions are not endorsed by the service provider

• The service provider may provide links to third party sites and these are not endorsed

by the service provider

• Must be used in accordance with the law in an ethical and professional manner

• Disclaimer of warranties

• Limitation of liability

• User indemnifies the provider

Recommendation

In providing a set of terms and conditions for users to accept upon initial use, LGAs should

consider including:

• No guarantee over the quality of service

65 http://slv.vic.gov.au/wifi/index.cgi 66 http://www.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au/sitePage.cfm?code=wifi-terms



• Information may be collected for the purposes of monitoring and improving the

service for users (including IP and MAC address of connecting devices)

• Details of data that may be collected for other purposes (for example for targeted

advertising)

• Consent for direct marketing (if this is required by your Public Wi-Fi partner)

• Must abide by applicable laws

• Accessing, downloading or printing pornographic or other offensive material,

detailed in the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 1995

(Cth) is prohibited

• Other content filtered or blocked as deemed necessary to optimise performance

• Limitation of liability against loss or damage as a result of using the service – from

events such as downloading a virus or malware

• Indemnity against claims from third parties

This terms and conditions page would normally be provided through a captive portal, shown

for first time users. Users must acknowledge these terms and conditions before using the

service (for example by clicking an Accept button).



Public Wi-Fi Architecture

This section discusses the elements required to fully bring a Public Wi-Fi service to

fruition. Understanding all elements required to establish a Public Wi-Fi service is important

in forming an agreement with a service provider and acknowledging the scope of

responsibility each party has.

In addition to describing the architecture elements of Public Wi-Fi, this section also includes

guidance on the design of these elements.

Mesh vs Traditional WDS

Two network topologies are commonly used in Public Wi-Fi implementations, being a

traditional Wireless Distribution System (WDS) that is similar to a hub-and-spoke approach,

and a mesh topology:

o WDS uses two modes for linking two Access Points, being bridge mode

(where two APs are connected exclusively – ie wireless clients cannot connect

to these APs) and repeater mode (where an AP repeats the signal from

another AP, effectively extending range). WDS essentially provides a hub and

spoke network topology.

o A mesh topology is where APs and clients are able to connect to each other in

a mesh topology. Mesh networks intelligently route traffic to optimise

performance and can automatically heal the network if an AP or

communications link becomes degraded or unavailable. By their very nature,

mesh networks can have a static or ad-hoc topology.



Overall systems architecture

The 802.11 standard refers to four elements that make up Wi-Fi architecture, being67:

• Stations –any device that provides a node for communication and can be either

clients (ie end-user devices) or Access Points (APs).

• A Basic Service Set (or BSS) is formed when a set of stations connect together to form

a Wi-Fi network. These can either be independent (ie ad-hoc network between two

clients), or an infrastructure BSS (where APs are used).

• An Extended Service Set (ESS) is where two or more BSSs are connected together. Its

simplest form is an AP that has the ability to service more than one device. Each ESS

is designated by an SSID.

• A Distribution System (DS) connects APs in an ESS. Wireless distribution systems

commonly used are WDS and mesh networks.

67 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_LAN, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_distribution_system,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network



Municipal network architecture example

The community network SFLan68, operated across the San Francisco area, envisages a three-

tier architecture, consisting of:

• Tier 1 – 5GHz radio units connected to municipal fibre or some other form of large

backhaul service. This service would be owned by an LGA.

• Tier 2 – This provides the link between tier 1 and 3 and would consist of a 5GHz and

2.5GHz flat panel antenna, the latter providing a directional Wi-Fi cloud and for

connecting to Tier 3 routers. This infrastructure would typically be run by a Not for

Profit and be crowd sourced.

• Tier 3 – End user router that generally has line of site with a Tier 2 transceiver. This is

the responsibility of the end user to provision and maintain.

Technology

Wireless Access Points. Many installations of Public Wi-Fi are looking to standardise on the

Access Point technology used to simplify support and maintenance. Dual or multi-band

Access Points provide the greatest chance of making all backhaul bandwidth available to

users. Access Points that utilise the 802.11ac standard are recommended. Technology

commonly deployed in Australia includes:

68 https://archive.org/web/sflan.php



• Cisco Meraki69 - Developed early community wireless projects (San

Francisco). Acquired by Cisco in 2012. Provides mesh functionality.

• Openmesh70 (or refer to Nova Wireless71 as one Australian distributor) - used in the

community mesh network across Goulburn, managed by The Goulburn Group.

• Ubiquiti UniFi72 - 802.11n and ac APs, WiMAX and wireless backhaul products. Does

not support mesh networks73.

• AirTight – 802.11ac APs and cloud management. AirTight APs are mesh capable.

• EnGenius74– 802.11n and ac APs, high gain antennas and management solutions.

Engenius APs are mesh capable75 (Using EnGenius APs to build a metropolitan mesh

network).

• Aruba76 - 802.11ac APs, captive portal and network management solutions. AirMesh

product provides mesh capability77.

• Altai 78– providing antennas (including high power, long range, directional), APs,

network management and backhaul management products. APs are 802.11n

compliant.

Other mesh network offerings include:

• Commotion Wireless79 - firmware and software for flashing onto a range of wireless

routers or installing on smartphones or PCs. Most suited for community mesh

networks with a heterogeneous Access Point environment. Commotion Wireless is

an open source community mesh network solution used in Detroit districts.

• Open Garden80 - Software loaded onto PCs or smartphones that create a mesh

network using existing Wi-Fi capability. Only devices running Open Garden can

participate in the mesh. Again, this is an open source and more suited to community

mesh networks.

Backhaul81. Sufficient download bandwidth needs to be available for users to have a

relatively seamless user experience, free of noticeable lag. The amount of backhaul

69 https://meraki.cisco.com/ 70 http://www.open-mesh.com/ 71 http://www.open-mesh.com.au/ 72 http://www.ubnt.com/products/#all/wireless 73 https://community.ubnt.com/t5/airMAX-General-Discussion/Mesh-with-Nano-Station/m-p/322265#M26440 74 http://www.engeniustech.com.au/ 75 http://www.matrix.lt/articles/EnGenius-mesh-eom-8670-product.pdf 76 http://www.arubanetworks.com/ 77 http://www.arubanetworks.com/products/mesh-routers/ 78 http://www.altaitechnologies.com/?page_id=236 79 https://commotionwireless.net/ 80 https://opengarden.com/ 81 https://help.cloudtrax.com/hc/en-us/articles/202405750-Part-2-Choosing-Bandwidth-Access-Points-and-Enclosures



bandwidth provisioned for users depends upon the types of traffic that are permitted and

the number of concurrent Public Wi-Fi connections. Firstly, a per user bandwidth

requirement is determined. The following table provides a guide on determining the

bandwidth requirements per user of varying types of traffic:

Traffic type Up (kbps) Down (kbps)

VoIP 100 100

Browsing 500 100

Email 500 500

YouTube 700 100

Skype HD 1500 1500

Netflix HD 3800 100

Another good reference is the Cisco Design Guide82. LGAs may consider blocking specific

traffic to help reduce bandwidth requirements per user.

The second step is to determine aggregate bandwidth requirements for a specific area.

Captive portal. This functionality is provided through commercial grade wireless Access

Points, such as Meraki and Openmesh. The captive portal provides a place for terms and

conditions to be accepted, and authentication to take place. Stand-alone captive portal

solutions are available, including:

• Clearpass83 - although an Aruba standalone product, they claim that Clearpass is

vendor / device agnostic.

Advertising delivery and management. Advertising delivery can help bolster the business

case for Public Wi-Fi, but if deemed too intrusive, may turn users away. Typically advertising

delivery would be provided as part of the deal if a third party (particularly an ISP) is

partnering with an LGA to provide Public Wi-Fi. Alternatively LGAs, if they choose to include

advertising as part of their Public Wi-Fi offering can partner with an advertising partner or

include a third party advertising service. Some examples to consider include:

• Socifi84 monetisation service – can include only advertising for a specific organisation

(such as an LGA) if required. An organisation receives revenue for displaying ads

from the Socifi ad network.

82 http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/wireless/aironet-1250-series/design_guide_c07-693245.html#wp9001186 83 http://www.arubanetworks.com/products/clearpass/ 84 http://www.socifi.com/en-GB/



• SkiFii85 provides a marketing and behavioural analysis platform for Public Wi-Fi. One

example is their work at the Queen Victoria Building in Sydney86. There, users watch

a 15 sec advertising video before gaining access to the Internet. The SkiFii service

also reports to be able to push out location and context dependent advertising. Their

offering is focused on the retail sector.

Content filtering and blocking. Most Public Wi-Fi services provide a level of filtering and

blocking of inappropriate content - largely along the requirements of the national

classification scheme. This is typically performed by an LGA’s corporate network content

filtering and blocking solution, or by a third party.

Network performance monitoring. SNMP interrogation is possible with most of the above

Access Points, thus allowing integration with an LGA’s existing system monitoring platform.

In addition, sFlow/netFlow interrogation is available on most Access Points for network

performance monitoring. Alternatively, a third party product can be used, such

as LogicMonitor87.

End user security. For some providers of Public Wi-Fi (most notably, Google Wi-Fi) ensuring

the security of end users is important. Some LGAs provide details of how users can secure

their communications over their Public Wi-Fi service on their website and on the splash page

that greets new users. Two methods are commonly recommended to users:

• VPN – Establishing a VPN between the end user and the service they are accessing

over the Internet is seen as the most secure. Users can either use a corporate VPN

provided by their employer or a personal VPN provided by a third party. Examples of

personal VPN software providers with a presence in Australia include:

o Buffered88

o VyprVPN89

o Astrill90

One interesting example was Google Secure Access (GSA) released in beta by Google

in 2005 that provided a VPN connection between an end user device and Google

servers. The software is now defunct, with Google’s approach to security focusing on

85 http://www.skyfii.com/business.html 86 http://a030f85c1e25003d7609-b98377aee968aad08453374eb1df3398.r40.cf2.rackcdn.com/case-studies/cs-queen-

victoria.pdf 87 http://www.logicmonitor.com/monitoring/network-monitoring-tools/meraki-controller/ 88 http://landing.buffered.com/unblock-content-pete/ 89 http://www.goldenfrog.com/vyprvpn 90 https://www.astrill.com



SSL. To reinforce this position, Google is encouraging websites to provide SSL

connections for regular web traffic and by doing so will increase their organic search

rankings91 .

• SSL – If establishing a corporate or personal VPN is not feasible, then

communications can be secured using SSL and is only available when consuming

content from sites that support SSL.

Design and troubleshooting

Deciding upon the location of Public Wi-Fi APs can be assisted with the use of site survey

and planning software. Such software may be particularly useful to collect information on

the volume of potential users in a particular location before installing an AP. In addition, it

may be useful to determine how buildings and structures influence the shape and site of a

hotspot. Some of the more common software used for site survey and planning include:

• Indoor - Heatmapper92, inSSIDer93 and Aerohive Planner94

• Maps of outdoor coverage of Wi-Fi APs - WiGLE95, WeFi

http://www.wefi.com/maps/ for finding other APs in a particular area or Free Wi-Fi

Finder (iOS app)96

Note that some of the above software offers Wi-Fi troubleshooting capabilities, like

identifying interference, signal overlaps, channel conflicts and configuration issues.

Wardriving is also a worthwhile technique to improve your knowledge of Wi-Fi APs and Wi-Fi

enabled devices in an area. Learn more about how to wardrive at

https://wigle.net/wiki/index.cgi?Cardinal_Rules_Of_Wardriving_FAQ. This approach may help

you determine the potential size of audience you may capture when implementing a Public

Wi-Fi AP.

Other considerations

Standardising firmware. OpenWRT97 and its code branch DD_WRT98 are open source AP

firmware solutions that are more prevalently used in community networks to standardise APs

91 http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com.au/2014/08/https-as-ranking-signal.html 92 http://www.ekahau.com/wifidesign/ekahau-heatmapper 93 http://www.inssider.com/ 94 http://www.aerohive.com/planner 95 https://wigle.net/ 96 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/free-wi-fi-finder/id307217005?mt=8 97 https://openwrt.org/ 98 http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/index



from differing manufacturers. OpenWRT (with 802.11s support depending upon the

hardware used99) and DD-WRT100 support mesh networks

Other open source AP firmware options:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wireless_router_firmware_projects

Security suggestions for securing corporate Wi-Fi networks and an example of how

seemingly secure networks can be hacked can be found at

http://www.hackingtheuniverse.com/information-security/attack-vs-defense/attack-vs-defense-on-

an-organizational-scale/5-wireless-network

99 http://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/mesh.80211s 100 http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Mesh_Networking_with_OLSR.



Conclusion

After years of failed Public Wi-Fi projects across the globe, we are reaching a time where

there is both a financial and social imperative to adopt Public Wi-Fi solutions. Our digital

lives rely upon connectedness through the Internet. Having inexpensive and seamless access

is becoming for many a necessity, rather than a luxury. Many argue that the Internet our

newest public utility – as important as power, water, gas and the telephone.

This body of research suggests that Public Wi-Fi could be one important vehicle for

delivering this essential utility, one that can be facilitated by local government. Of any level

of government, local government is best empowered to implement practical solutions to

help the communities they serve grow and prosper.

Local government holds many of the cards telcos need to fulfil their next growth strategy –

to offload exponential growth in 3G and 4G traffic onto less expensive Wi-Fi networks.

Smart local governments will understand this, and will remain flexible in their approach to

rolling out Public Wi-Fi, potentially partnering with telcos to provide service in high traffic

retail precincts and residential areas. Local government can also overlay this with a vibrant

community network that helps people help themselves, especially in disadvantaged areas.

And, finally, local government will always be in the business of investing in great ideas that

support their local communities. Public Wi-Fi is the perfect backdrop to implementing great

local ideas in the digital world that empower and inspire.

The question you must first ask though is why Public Wi-Fi? What is important and relevant

for your LGA? And in answering this question, you will be well on your way down the road of

Public Wi-Fi.

Attachments

A. Business Model Variations

B. Glossary



Attachment A : Business Model variations

Bus

model

Variation Prerequisites Benefits Costs Potential risks Examples and

references

Partnership

Advertising

partnership

Understand points of leverage.

Understand what you want

from a partnership.

Usually structured as a

Memorandum of

Understanding.

Direct marketing

opportunities can offset the

implementation and support

costs.

Nil Relies on a sizable captive

audience for this to be

sustainable.

Council has limited control over

changes made to the service.

San Francisco

Bay Area

Telco partnership As above.

Carrier license and

compliance requirements are

the responsibility of the third

party.

Able to use the telco

network for Council use.

Minimal or no cost.

Nil Council has limited control in

changes made to the service.

Wi-Fi Nation

ISP partnership As above As above Nil As above. City of

Melbourne



Bus

model


references

Partner with other

levels of

government

As above As above Commensurate

portion of overall

cost.

As above.

Community network

Play a facilitation

role

Knowledge of what is required

to establish a successful

community network

Trust and commitment from

local business / individuals that

will participate in the service

Confirm who will have

responsibility for growing,

monitoring and supporting the

service.

Important to be clear about the

role of Council

If time is spent in getting the

model right, the network will

grow with and support the

local community.

Time for

Community

Development

department to learn

the skills they need

to engage with the

community.

Alternatively, cost

of skilled consultant

to help build

knowledge within

Council and

facilitate initial

workshops with the

community.

Limited risk as risk is borne by the

community group and business

owners / individuals providing the

service

Detroit

Invest through

grant

A community group that drives

growth, monitors and supports

the service.

As above < $5,000 per

annum

As above Goulburn

Mulwaree

Council



Bus

model


references

Self-funded

Funds committed

through Council

plan

Public Wi-Fi implementation

added as a Council Plan action.

Funds allocated.

IT team (network operations)

able to provide monitoring and

support for growing the

network and resolving issues –

if this is kept in-house.

Straightforward approach to

gaining funding and

support.

Cost of Access

Points, security

monitoring,

backhaul and

support.

Limited by how

much you can fund

from rates.

Council takes on security and

regulatory risks. Mitigated

through terms and conditions,

security controls and network

monitoring.

East Gippsland

Shire Council,

City of

Melbourne

Grants obtained

from other parties

(other govt or

private enterprise)

Clear business case and

objectives for providing a

Public Wi-Fi service.

Minimal upfront funding

required from council.

Working together with other

organisations to facilitate a

region-wide approach.

Cost of Access

Points, security

monitoring,

backhaul and

support.

As above.

In addition, not achieving the

expected benefits as detailed in

the business case

Supporting a

localised council

initiative

An idea or concept that relies

on digital media, is delivered to

mobile user devices and is

location dependent.

Engaging the community in

new ways.

Cost to design,

develop, implement

and support the

idea.

Not realising benefits in the

business case. What happens to

Public Wi-Fi once the localised

initiative reaches end of life?

South

Gippsland

Shire Council

(Coal Creek

initiative)



Bus

model


references

Funding allocated. Providing more value at

Council venues that drive

participation.

Become the ISP Network infrastructure owned

by Council that has significant

excess capacity and potential

Provide another stream of

revenue

Costs associated in

splitting off a

separate ISP entity.

In most cases, ISP operations are

split off into an entity separate to

Council to limit Council risk

exposure.

City of Burnie



Attachment B : Glossary

802.11101 – five variants are offered within this standard, and two amendments:

• b – IEEE expanded the original 1997 specification in 1999 to support faster speeds (up to 11

Mbps). It uses the same unlicensed 2.4GHz frequency as the original standard.

• a – created at the same time as the 802.11b standard, provides faster transmission rates (up to

54Mbps) with smaller transmission distances and uses the 5GHz frequency band. Devices

supporting this standard were more expensive to manufacture than 802.11b equivalents.

• g – Released in 2002, 802.11g devices provide transmission rates up to 54Mbps in the 2.4GHz

frequency band, and is backwards compatible with 802.11b devices.

• n – In 2009, the 802.11n standard was released, supporting up to 300Mbps bandwidth

through the use of multiple antennas. These devices are backwards compatible with b and g

devices. Maximum output is achieved through deploying a 5GHz 802.11n network.

• ac – supports simultaneous connections on 5GHz and 2.4GHz frequency bands and provides

backwards compatibility with b/g/n devices. It provides speeds of up to 1300Mbps in the

5GHz frequency band. This standard was ratified by IEEE in late 2012. A detailed analysis of

the benefits of migrating to 802.11ac can be found at

http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/tip/80211ac-2013-standard-ratified-What-WLAN-

planners-need-to-know

• u – an amendment to the standard to include improvements making it easier for clients to

choose and connect to the most appropriate Wi-Fi service. Published in 2011, this

amendment contains standards for network discovery and selection, quality of service

mapping, and calling of emergency services.

• s – an amendment for mesh networking for static topologies or ad-hoc networks.

Access Point (AP) – An Access Point is a device that allows many clients to connect to a network over

a wireless connection. A hotspot is the physical area where a client can obtain a wireless network

connection with the Access Point. Access Points can provide additional embedded features, including

Captive Portal, encryption and routing.

Backhaul – the high speed, high bandwidth connection a Wi-Fi network has back to the Internet, and

is thus shared with end users.

101 http://compnetworking.about.com/cs/wireless80211/a/aa80211standard.htm, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11n-

2009, http://www.networkworld.com/article/2180880/tech-primers/802-11u-and-hotspot-2-0-promise-wi-fi-users-a-cellular-

like-experience.html



Captive Portal – a web page, pages or service that a new user is redirected to when they first access a

Wi-Fi service or when a specific event occurs (eg when a user exceeds their download limit and is

redirected to a web page to purchase a voucher). User agents such as Apple’s Captive Network

Assistant can, in some cases, circumvent a captive portal if the user already has login credentials.

DHCP – Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol enables a network appliance to automatically assign an

IP address to a device within a given range or scope.

Hotspot 2.0 - allows consumers to seamlessly shift connections between wireless carriers and public

Wi-Fi hotspots102

Malware103 – software that causes damage or degrades performance of end user computing device,

servers or network infrastructure. Malware may include viruses, Trojans, and denial of service attack

software.

Municipal Wi-Fi or Muni-Fi104 - is where an entire city or area is provided with contiguous Wi-Fi

access. Adelaide and Perth are the only Australian cities that currently have a Municipal Wi-Fi service

blanketing the CBD, although Melbourne, Ballarat and Bendigo will also provide a municipal Wifi

service over the coming 12 to 18 months through the Victorian Government Public Wi-Fi initiative.

Public Wi-Fi – A wireless network offered to the general public and not constricted for use by a

particular group of people. A Public Wi-Fi service is generally free to use within limits set by the

service provider. The service may, or may not, provide advertising.

SSID – The Service Set Identifier for a wireless network. It is the public name of a wireless network

that can be seen on a user’s device when searching for available networks (unless the SSID is hidden).

An SSID can be up to 32 characters long.

SSL – Secure Socket Layer is the security protocol used for encrypting communications over the web

between client and server. The protocol relies upon a public key that is sent by the server to the user

for the purpose of encryption, and a private key that is held on the server to decrypt the information

sent by the client. An SSL certificate (held on the server) provides information about who the keys

were generated for and the trustworthiness of these keys.

VPN – A Virtual Private Network is a secure connection between a private network and a client

looking to access this network over the Internet.

102 http://www.ibtimes.com/google-plans-future-wireless-internet-one-small-business-time-1588958 103 http://www.svunwired.com/?p=details&id=50162 104 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Municipal_wireless_network



Wardriving105 - moving through an area and searching for and logging details of Wi-Fi networks

using software (and usually a GPS device).

Warchalking106 - a set of symbols that are drawn on a nearby object (such as a building or footpath)

that denotes the presence of a Wi-Fi network. Developed by Matt Jones in June 2002 and similar to

hobo symbols107.

vWLAN – Virtual Wireless LAN provided by Adtran Bluesocket APs.

W-IDS – Intrusion Detection Solutions for Wi-Fi networks.

Wi-Fi - a computer network that generally uses spread-spectrum or frequency division multiplexing

radio to wirelessly connect end-user devices to a network108.

WiMAX109 – Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access is a wireless communication standard

based on the 802.16e standard that provides 30 to 40Mbps data rates and designed to provide the

“last mile” wireless broadband access as an alternative to cable and DSL. WiMAX can use unlicensed

or licenced spectrum. Although WiMAX and Wi-Fi are not interoperable, they are often

complementary (where WiMAX provides a connection from a metropolitan backhaul network to a

user’s home, and Wi-Fi is used within the home.

WISPr – Wireless Internet Service Provider roaming is a draft protocol that allows users to roam

between Wi-Fi service providers110

WLAN – Wireless LAN.

105 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardriving 106 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warchalking 107 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobo#Hobo_signs_.28symbols.29 108 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_LAN 109 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WiMAX 110 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WISPr

implementing public wi-fi services for local government

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